My daughter is 3 and I am a single parent. She wines and throws fits and hit me also other people like if she goes to dance or the mcdonalds play area. I have no idea how to control this. Nothing seems to work. Please help me, i am si imbarrassed to go anywhere with her because of the way she is she does not listen at all. PLEASE HELP

Elizabeth, I too am a single mom and have 2 sons. My youngest who is now 6 went thru the same thing. He still at times throws fits. At one point I honestly thought that I wouldn't survive his out of control behavior and his father was no help. He refused to deal with the behavior because he didn't see it firsthand. I actually was going to send him to live with his father for a while. I found myself giving in to him just so I wouldn't have to deal with the tantrums. I finally got a backbone and let him know that I wasn't going to tolerate that kind of behavior and he did eventually get the picture and it took 2 years, but he is a totally different child now. He is very well behaved and sometimes when he does throw a fit, I actually look him in the eyes and explain to him that his behavior is not appropriate and I will not deal with it and guess what, it works. I know it's hard to do with a 3 year old but stand your ground and stay strong. THIS TOO WILL PASS!!!!

I agree with Tracey, sometimes the pressure is on single mums (I'm one too) to be all mumsy and nice because of stereotyping so we fall into problems with discipline and listen to too much pyschobabble about being nice about EVERYTHING which then backfires on us. And then even with the most loving ex, they don't see it as much as we do so we don't have there back up. Don't be afraid of being firm, and don't look on it as a single parent problem, lots of kids go through phases like this with two parents living with them. Try to predict situations as much as possible and distract from them before it reaches the hitting point and provide stuff that can be whacked without consequence so she has an outlet for that desire, not whacking stuff thats the problem its whats getting whacked that matters! If she does hit someone have a definite consequence for it to make it a less appealing thing to do. My son is 3 and will roar very loudly like a tiger at anyone passing, most people take it very well but a few older people have had nasty shocks, so your not alone in your problem.